NALC Director of City Delivery Dale Hart believes that bringing increased responsibility, accountability and mutual respect to the workroom floor will lead to improved labor relations and his top priorities are shaping programs and helping make decisions to achieve that goal.

Hart was elected Director of City Delivery by acclamation at the 2006 National Convention in Las Vegas. Before that, he had served three terms as National Business Agent for Region 1.

Known as an intense and serious advocate of letter carrier rights, Hart began his postal career in 1966 following three years in the U.S. Army. Hart remembers it was about seven years later that he started complaining about the schedules of part-time flexibles at the Burlingame, California Main Post Office.

“I thought that PTFs were getting the short end of the stick and made such a stink about it that the branch president gave me an ultimatum—either become a steward or shut up,” Hart recalled. “So, I became a steward.”

Hart discovered that he had been wrong about the schedule situation, “but I found other ways to deal with it, and never looked back.” He soon became chief steward and president of Burlingame Branch 1767 and when it merged with San Mateo Branch 1280 he became executive vice president of the merged Branch 1280.

By 1976, Hart also was on the executive board of the California State Association, where he remained for a decade. After serving as a local business agent, he was named a Regional Administrative Assistant in 1987. He was first elected NBA in 1994.

Hart says he hopes to “use interventions to bring responsibility and accountability to management at the workroom floor level,” reduce disputes, improve the atmosphere at the workplace, and enhance respect between managers and the union leadership.

“If we can accomplish this, I believe we can build trust into labor-management relations to a point that decisions are made proactively and jointly, in the best interests of the Service, letter carriers, and postal patrons,” he said.

Hart has an adult son, Jeremy.